This Day In Wrestling History- May 13th

2004 – NWA-TNA announced they would debut on Fox Sports Net with their first ever series, TNA Impact

Events

In 1988, the NWA held a 7-man tournament to fill the NWA United States Heavyweight Title vacancy left by Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes had been stripped of the title one month earlier after attacking Jim Crockett. The tournament was held in Houston, Texas:

In 1995, ECW held “Enter Sandman” at the ECW Arena, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:

– Hack Myers defeated Tony Stetson
– 911 & The Tazmaniac defeated Tsubo Genjin & Hiroyoshi Iekuda
– Axl Rotten defeated Ian Rotten in a barbed wire bat match that saw a barbed wire chair also brought into the equation
– Raven & Stevie Richards defeated Tommy Dreamer & Mikey Whipwreck by DQ. This match features the introduction of referee Bill Alfonso with the storyline being that Shane Douglas petitioned the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission for rules to be enforced within ECW. Alfonso DQ’d Dreamer for using a closed fist. This would kick off an entire summer of fans literally wanting to kill Alfonso for “ruining the ECW party”. Alfonso would go to work for ECW until it went out of business in January 2001
– ECW World Television Champion Eddie Guerrero fought Dean Malenko to a 30-minute draw to retain the title
– ECW World Heavyweight Champion The Sandman defeated Cactus Jack to retain the title
– ECW World Television Champion Eddie Guerrero defeated Marty Jannetty to retain the title
– ECW World Heavyweight Champion The Sandman defeated Shane Douglas to retain the title after Mick Foley interfered
– ECW World Tag Team Champions The Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock) defeated The Pitbulls (#1 and #2) in a double dog collar match to retain the titles

In 2007, TNA Sacrifice was held at the Impact Zone, in Orlando, Florida. The NWA severed ties with TNA earlier this day, meaning that the NWA belts were used, but were not referred to as such. For the same reason, Kurt Angle’s win is not recognized by the NWA. With an attendance of 900:

Also, today would have been the birthday of former NWA southern states star Killer Karl Krupp (80)

In Memoriam

On this day in 2000, the wrestling world lost the first AJPW Triple Crown Champion Jumbo Tsuruta aged 49. He was an accomplished amateur wrestler in Japan, winning competitions in both freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling at the super heavyweight level. This success took him to the 1972 Munich Olympics, though he found considerably less success there, losing both of his preliminary matches to European opponents. All Japan promoter Giant Baba approached Tsuruta, later sending him to Texas to train under Dory Funk Jr. and it was here that he debuted in 1973. It is said that he was the first Japanese wrestler to compete as a crowd-favourite in America, as fans cheered him for his wrestling ability and superior work ethic. Following this training period, he quickly rose through the ranks of All Japan, becoming the first AJPW Unified Tag Team Champion with Yoshiaki Yatsu in 1988, before unifying the NWA International, PWF Heavyweight and NWA United National Titles into the AJPW Triple Crown Title the following year. He would go on to hold those titles a total of 10 times through his career. Notably, he was also instrumental in the rise of Mitsuharu Misawa, giving the young wrestler his first main event win in 1990. Tsuruta’s career declined in 1992 after being diagnosed with Hepatitis B. He took an office job with the promotion while recovering, eventually making a minor return in a comedic role before retiring for good in early 1999. Barely two weeks later, he was forced out of his office position by Motoko Baba (the widow of Giant Baba) who had assumed control of her deceased husband’s promotion. He briefly moved to Portland, Oregon before returning to Japan after being diagnosed with kidney cancer, from which he would not recover. Tsuruta died of complications from an attempted kidney transplant, though it was found that his cancer had spread to his liver as well. Tsuruta was revered by the wrestling press; he competed in well over 3000 matches in his career, and has been described as ‘the best pure wrestler in the world in the 1980s’ and ‘the strongest wrestler in the history of Japanese wrestling’.